I made some new knife scales for a friend, using book matched pieces of Madagascar (black & white) ebony. Also cleaned up the blade and sharpened it well beyond what any reasonable use would require. Because I love wood, and I love sharp stuff, too.

The scales are bookmatched, so the pattern you see on one side of the knife handle is perfectly mirrored on the other side. Makes a really great visual effect, since the pattern in the ebony is so dramatic to begin with. The process basically went as follows.

- Clean the black gunk off the blade with a belt sander.- Choose stock for scales, band saw, bookmatch, flatten, and epoxy in place.- Once the epoxy is dry, use the disc sander on outer curves and the front of the belt sander for inner curves, flush the scales up to the tang of the knife.- Sand the grips until they look nice.- Mask off the blade, finish grips with several coats of satin spray lacquer, buff for final polish.- Sharpen the blade by hand, finish on a strop.

All told it probably took me an hour to do. It was a really fun project, and seeing the look on my friend’s face when it was done was definitely worth it. I need to do more like this.

A gentleman in San Antonio commissioned me to make a Thor-inspired trophy for his fantasy football league. I know next to nothing about football and even less about an imaginary version of football, but I do know wood.

The customer specified that the pommel be inlaid with the Greek letter Lambda. I guess that’s for his league or fraternity, or whatever.

The mahogany is insanely pretty, with beautiful ribbon figuring throughout. You can see a bit here on the hammer head, but it’s difficult for pictures to do it justice. Only in person can you really see the way it shimmers in the light.

I haven’t posted any projects for quite a while, but don’t let that lead you to believe I haven’t been busy! Between my Etsy store, my .com site, local festivals, and large wholesale orders from a handful of select retailers, I’ve probably made about a thousand of these things by now. Not even joking.

The Christmas season really took me by surprise. I honestly wasn’t prepared for the amount of demand. A couple of days before Thanksgiving, it’s like the Small Business Fairies flipped a switch, and boom. Everyone wanted one. The orders kept rolling in, and it got to a point when the “cha-ching” sound from the Etsy app on my phone made me groan rather than smile. Things have calmed down a lot since, although it’s far from dead. The local festivals have really been fun, especially the first beard and mustache competition I went to as a vendor. You meet some interesting folks at an event like that. It was at a brewery, and free beer was involved. Not gonna turn that down. Liquid social lubricant makes me a better salesman than my usual stoic, introverted self.

From the beginning, I’ve been meaning to use the comb thing as a means to an end, to work up to custom furniture. Thankfully, with the holidays behind me I have more time to branch out into other things. But it has allowed me to upgrade several items in my shop, as well as make several lifestyle upgrades. Can’t complain.

When I started doing this back in May of 2014, less than half a year ago, I had no idea just how much this thing would take on a life of its own. I wouldn’t have been able to accomplish a fraction of what I have if it weren’t for my wife. She’s been my office manager, website designer, shipping department, marketing manager, accountant, salesperson, wood buyer, and motivator in chief.

I’m a lucky guy. Now I just need more recent pictures and video of myself on my site now that I’ve grown a beard. If you’ve read this far, thanks. Have a cookie.

I got tired of the thick and short bladed store bought marking knife I was using, so I decided to make this. Used an old sawzall blade for the steel, and used a pen blank of Claro walnut burl and a bit of cherry for the grip. Cuts great, I’m pretty happy with it.

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Fri, 20 Jun 2014 17:59:41 GMThttp://lumberjocks.com/projects/102577BTimmonsBTimmonsI've been working on my wood combs, all the live long dayhttp://lumberjocks.com/projects/101805

After the successful launch of my Etsy store, I’ve been cranking out the combs left and right. Trying new woods and streamlining my processes has been interesting and quite fun. I’ve determined that I absolutely love cocobolo. Black & white ebony and claro walnut burl are also extremely nice.

I want to easy my way into larger pieces like furniture, but for now this is doing pretty well for me. I basically tried doing combs on a lark, because not many others are doing them and it looked like fun. Turns out people really love them, and they buy the things. Who knew?

After a few previous attempts (which can be seen in my earlier projects), I think I’ve settled on a design that I really like. I decided to forgo the buttons on the grip, in favor of a more sleek, minimalist approach. Higher resolution images can be seen here. In particular, I’m pretty proud of the hand filing between the bases of the teeth, and how I’m able to get better results quicker the more I practice.

One big thing I did differently is that the splines aren’t flat, but rather flare out towards the back. It makes for a nice comfortable grip that feels great in the hand. Of course it also makes the comb extremely strong and resistant to flexing. The profile on the teeth is also more refined. I used a triangular file in between all the teeth to make them ever so slightly more rounded, rather than completely square in cross section at the tips.

And while I previously had doubts about whether I liked cherry on account of its plain appearance, the rosewood makes for a beautiful contrast, and I think that they work really well together. I’ll undoubtedly try a few more combinations, but this one is definitely a keeper.

Teeth are cut on a table saw jig, then profile sanding is done on a belt sander, followed by sanding mops chucked in the drill press, in 180 and 400 grit. Earlier I had used boiled linseed oil for finishing, which didn’t do much besides make the cherry dull and somewhat blotchy. But here I went straight to my new Beall buffing wheels. So this is finished with a friction polish alone, with a quick buff of carnauba wax. I have to say, it feels amazing in the hand and in the hair of course! I’ve been testing it on my rough-and-tumble four year old daughter’s long hair, and even the toughest tangles don’t stand a chance. I used to struggle to get the knots out of her hair, but now it’s like bringing a machine gun to a knife fight.

I’ve made three like this one so far, with blanks to make nine more in the next couple days. Pretty soon I’ll be able to open up on Etsy and start selling!

1 – Here’s a selection from my first batch of beard combs showcasing different woods for the grip. I have one more in wenge, one more in African mahogany, and two more in curly maple. I’ve quickly fallen in love with bocote, which makes up the main body for each of these. Each one is shaped a little differently. Making these in batches allows for little experiments between pieces.

2- Bocote with wenge. The shape of this one, my favorite of the bunch, was completely unintentional at first. When I was shaping the grip, I went right through to the bocote underneath. So to salvage it, I just sanded hollows into the grip to remove the flawed portions. It’s what Bob Ross would’ve called a happy little accident.

3 – Bocote with curly maple. On the next batch I plan to make these into more of an apple seed convex shape, rather than the concave curves seen here.

4 – Bocote with African mahogany. I like the very dark and the very light with bocote, but I’m not sure about this combination.

5 – They’re pretty beefy, ranging from 5/8” to 3/4” at their thickest. The teeth are ridiculously strong. Bocote is a very hard wood. The teeth are cut on a table saw jig, and points are hand filed, along with the inner portions between the teeth. Main shaping is done by stationary belt sander and then I hit them with a 180 grit sanding mop chucked in my drill press.

6 – They’re polished smooth using a three part power buffing system, so no film finish has been added. I’ve had a few people ask for process pictures and video on my earlier combs.

But prototyping and getting ready to set up an online shop for these has been keeping me busy. Soon!

This is my second try at a wooden comb, this time using cherry with walnut. The grain on cherry is tighter and its pores aren’t as big, which makes it better suited for running through hair compared to walnut, which I used on my first try.

This piece of cherry has a dark mineral streak discoloring one of the teeth. Didn’t know it was there until everything was cut. Guess I need to get more select material. The little dark dots you see in the cherry are from my needle file, when I slipped while filing between the teeth and ended up poking the wood. Oops. Despite the wood’s additional “character” and my little mistakes, I still like this one a lot better.

All it’s had in terms of finish is a good soak of boiled linseed oil. What I’d like to do in the near future is invest in a good buffing system to really shine it up.

I tried using a belt sander for shaping the curves, which kind of got away from me in a couple of spots. I’m thinking that a small roundover bit in a router table is the way to go in order to ensure consistency.

A fine gentleman employed at Reddit Inc. saw a past project of mine (a “Thor”-inspired hammer) that I had posted to reddit.com/r/woodworking and took a liking to it, and asked if I could do something similar for them. Oh yes, and they wanted me to make two of them, one for each office. Don’t ask me to explain why wanted “what gives, admin?” carved. Means something to them, I guess.

I spend a bit too much time on Reddit as it is, but at least I have something fun to show for it now. This is easily the most ludicrous, and most fun project I’ve done to date. I kind of wish I’d made a third one so I could’ve kept one for myself.

Thought it might be fun to try one of these. After doing a little research, it turns out there are all sorts of benefits to wooden combs over plastic. Not the least of which is the complete lack of static. It’s also more gentle on your scalp. And the wood fibers help to spread natural oils from root to tip. Pretty neat.

I wasn’t following any plans and I was designing on the fly, so I had to figure out each process as I went. Not counting drying time for glue, this took me a couple of hours to do. But if I really get set up the way I want, I can knock these out in batches and spend much less time for each one.

The grain of the walnut and mahogany run perpendicular to each other, and make for a very strong little piece. The walnut dowels go completely through each end. The individual comb teeth are surprisingly strong, and nothing short of very deliberate abuse will break them.

Just a little over five inches (~13 cm). I built it by eye, not really trying to fit any exact measurement.

Here is the finished dark box. Or at least, my part in the project is done. It still needs a blackout cloth to be fitted. This will be used as a portable dark room for developing wet plate photos. If you’ve ever seen pictures of the old time photo equipment where the photographer has a cloth draped over them, it’s this kind of work.

The dark box is framed in red oak, with 1/2” birch ply panels. The exterior was colored with gel stain and topped with several coats of Arm-R-Seal. The interior was painted flat white in order to reflect ambient red light that will be used inside the box when developing plates. A red LED will provide interior light.

Gather around children, and I’ll tell you the story about The Ugly Little Jack Plane That Could.

I’ve been lurking and infrequently posting to this site for almost a couple of years now. I sat out the last swaps this site did, the mallets and marking gauges. I wasn’t confident enough in my ability to make something that another woodworker would want to have, to say nothing about frequently using it in their shop. Then it was decided that wood body hand planes would be next. Well, the challenges on Lumberjocks weren’t getting any easier, so I figured that I might as well jump in with both feet and either sink or swim.

So how did I do? In my own estimation, I kept my head above water. But just barely. There are all sorts of things that could’ve been designed better, more than a few “oops” moments, and details that should have been done with more care and patience. Of course, experience is something only acquired immediately after you needed it.

What I ended up with was this razee style jack plane. I decided on a jack for my first homemade plane because it wouldn’t need as much material as a jointer, and wouldn’t require as much precision as a smoother. Alas, I couldn’t even swing the 20 bucks for “Nice Ash” iron like I wanted. Ah, the life of a broke young family man. I decided to use an iron from a circa 1980s Stanley #4 that was never put together that well to begin with, although the iron was still good, of course. I ground the iron with a camber, who knows to what radius, I just eyeballed it. Sharpened and stropped with a freshly dressed chip breaker, and away I went. As you can see in the second picture, it takes a healthy scoop out of a board for quickly knocking down the high spots. So, while it won’t win a beauty contest, I can at least console myself in that it works as intended.

Made from red oak, with a cherry tote and sides, finished with boiled linseed oil. Thanks for looking, everyone. I look forward to seeing what everyone else comes up with for the swap.

A good friend of mine had a belated birthday party over the weekend. And unbeknownst to him but knownst to us, the theme for the party was none other than THOR, his favorite comic book hero when he was a kid. There were Thor paper plates, winged helmet party hats, a golden throne, a giant cardboard Chris Hemsworth, the works. Hey, we’re adults and we can do what we want. Don’t judge.

Another friend in the group asked me if I could make a hammer for the occasion and I happily obliged. When I started looking for images of the hammer, I found a dozen or so different versions between the movies and comic books. I couldn’t settle on any one of them, so I decided to take some artistic license and make my own version.

My mom-in-law adopted a stray kitten about a month ago. It was sick at the time, and unfortunately she never got better. So after she passed I was requested to make a little box for the ashes.

It’s made mostly from mahogany. The walnut pull is secured to the cherry lid with two little dowels. The lid fits very snug, so a little bead of epoxy around the inside lip should make for a nice final seal. The bottom is 1/2” birch ply set into interior grooves. Finished with a spray lacquer. I still need to spray a few more coats, but as of last night it was ready enough for pictures.

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Fri, 31 May 2013 15:43:15 GMThttp://lumberjocks.com/projects/85060BTimmonsBTimmonsThis is my mallet. There are many like it, but this one is mine.http://lumberjocks.com/projects/84552

The title says it all. Red oak and walnut, rubbed with BLO. Nice and hefty.

This is what happens when I don’t have pressing projects to work on and I feel compelled to make shavings, regardless of the outcome. In any case, it’s good “me” time, and it’s been great practice using planes for freehand shaping, rather than mere flattening and smoothing. I’ve always been something of a sword nut, so when boredom struck it didn’t take me long to decide what to do.

The large one was inspired by the German bastard swords seen in the late Medieval period and early Renaissance. (They were called “bastard” swords because they were neither true one-handed or two-handed swords, but more of a mix between the two.) This one was finished with boiled linseed oil, and I kind of wish I hadn’t. It yellowed the maple too much.

The smaller one which will be a gift for my nephew’s 9th birthday was inspired by the ubiquitous one-handed Norman sword of the early Medieval period. On this one, I’m pretty happy with how the octagonal sections of the cross guard and pommel turned out. Could be better, but planing free hand can be tricky. I did use boiled linseed oil on the hilt in order to darken it, but the rest of it will be waxed only to preserve the contrast between the maple and mahogany. This one is also built at roughly 3/4 scale. He’s only 9 after all. Swords of this type had a blade length around 30-32 inches, whereas this is closer to 24 inches. The hilt is also appropriately smaller to fit his hand.

There are lots of fun steps that go into shaping these, so I included some process pictures. There are a lot more of the larger sword since I had to really stop and think in between steps. I was totally winging it. Plans are massively overrated, anyway. Working on the smaller one felt much more automatic, having done the larger one already. The few pictures that I did take, it required a lot for me to slow down long enough to pull my phone out. On both swords, the hilts are mahogany and all other components are maple.

Here is the rough maple blank that forms both the blade and the tang.

Roughing the tip into a point.

At this point the blade has been shaped into a diamond cross section, and the homemade scratch stock has been used to carve out the fullers. (Scholarly nitpicking: The proper term is fullers, not blood grooves. The idea that the human body creates a suction when stabbed, requiring grooves to let blood flow and relieve said suction, is an old wives’ tale. The fullers are there to lighten the blade by removing mass, while simultaneously stiffening its cross section.)

The ugly little scratch stock that could. All I used was an old hacksaw blade. It was little flimsy and I had to bend it back into shape more than once, but I was able to rough up the edge enough to get the job done.

Here the lower edge of the blade has had a distal taper applied to it. Very seldom did sword blades have perfectly parallel edges. It was much more common to see very subtle narrowing towards the tip to help balance the blade.

Both edges with distal taper now.

The cross section of the mahogany hilt was done with my table saw.

Mortise for the cross guard has been chiseled out and fit onto the tang.

Here the pieces for the hilt have been cut and sandwiched together, forming a hexagonal cross section.

Now the cross guard has been shaped. The tight radii were done using a Forstner bit on my drill press, all other curves were roughed out on a band saw.

Just wanted to see what it looks like in my hand at this point.

The maple spacers were cut by hand and beveled with a smoothing plane.

Test fit of the hilt with the spacers. The table saw kind of got away from me when I was roughing out the blank along the tang, so I had to fudge a little bit and use a shim to tighten things up.

The hilt was profiled with some curves. Then the pommel was mortised, shaped, then glued into place.

EDIT: Almost forgot to include these two pictures of the smaller sword in the works. Like I said, I didn’t take many process pictures this time!

Here the blade has been roughed out along with the cross guard. The octagonal pommel is yet to be cut and shaped.

This pommel is secured with a mahogany wedge that fits into the end of the tang. You should be able to make it out in picture #5 up top. Trust me, it’s there!

Thus concludes the great wooden sword making adventure (for now).

EDIT: Added a picture of the birthday boy. Needless to say, it’s a hit.

My parents’ house was robbed a while back by a jewelry thief, so they have since installed a security system and I built a cabinet for a safe in their garage. I know it isn’t exactly Fort Knox, but it will at least slow anyone down if they try to get into it.

The safe is bolted to runners that are lag bolted into concrete, and I built a frame around that as well. It’s framed with pine 2×4s and the outer shell is maple plywood. The face frame is done with pocket screws, and lots of other countersunk screws all over the place to tighten things up. Once it’s painted it’ll look just like a garage cabinet for storing tools or whatnot. The most exacting part was definitely the door, and making sure that there’s enough room for the interior drawer to pull out.

Following instructions from a recent issue of Fine Woodworking, I finally knocked out a basic sled for myself. The construction method in the article made it pretty simple. Instead of attaching two runners to the underside of the sled at the same time and then raising the blade through, this method attaches one runner to one side, then trims off the excess as you run it past the blade. Repeat the same process on the same side. Make sure the runners are pulled tight toward the center, then attach your fences. Pretty easy. It’s made from maple plywood, with solid maple for the fences.

For a while I used it as is, without waxing the underside. Once I did though, wow! Now this thing flies, and it’s so easy to make fine movements that take more control.

Like my other recently posted project, it’s nothing glamorous, but it sure is progress for my little garage shop. I finished this about a month ago and I use it all the time now!

EDIT:

Forgot to mention the method for attaching the rear fence, which I thought was quite brilliant. Apply your glue to the underside of the rear fence, then drill a countersunk screw up into one far corner. Here’s the important part – Get the fence as close to square as you can relative to the saw kerf running down the middle of the sled. Then drive a thin nail (I used my air nail gun for this) into the other corner. Then immediately cut a wide board (10 to 12 inches or so) on your sled. Flip one end of the newly cut board over and press the freshly cut surfaces together. If there is no gap whatsoever, you’re dead square so go ahead and clamp the fence down and let it dry. If there is a gap though, you can use a hammer to lightly knock the nailed end of the fence. this bends the nail in infinitesimal increments, which allows you to make extremely fine adjustments. You can’t make those fine tweaks once the glue is dry, so you’ve got to work quick. Keep repeating and creeping up on it until your wide boards don’t have a gap after you cut and flip one, then clamp it all down and call it a day.

Nothing terribly fancy here. This was a gift to my Mother-in-law. She requested a simple side table that was the same height as the top of her stove, since it’s on a wall by itself and there are no nearby counter tops to set trivets or utensils on. It also fits around a small trash can that goes underneath the table. Those two requirements explain why the legs are so tall relative to the top.

It’s made of red oak finished with Minwax stain and satin poly. For such a simple project, it exacted more than its fair share of blood, sweat, and tears. Well, no tears, but a fair amount of sweat and more actual blood than I would care to lose in another project. I have since acquired a decent starter bench from Grizzly. Makes planing a lot easier, and certainly more safe.

I threw together an ugly but functional taper jig for my tablesaw in order to shape the legs. At the time, the big box stores near me didn’t have oak 2×2 stock in the length I needed, so I had to laminate two 1×2 oak pieces together for each leg. The top of made from 1×6, sawed in two and joined at the center. The top is secured with metal table top fasteners that ride in a kerf in the aprons that are only visible if you flip the table upside down. The legs are joined to the aprons using pocket screws.

Like I said, nothing terribly fancy. But for what the project requires, it works.